Puck Soup - Race To The Middle

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the wild card races, the Bedard sweepstakes, awards voting and more.   Sponsored by Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck), Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and HelloFresh (hellofresh.com/puck50)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McNeugh from The Athletic. And right off the bat here, there's controversy in the NHL. and I'm just going to let

Believe it or not I'm going to let Sean just go on this one I'm going to wind them up a little bit Apparently this was reported by Elliot Friedman the other day reported might be a strong word But noted by Elliot Friedman the other day That it seems like officials are treating Michael Bunting unfairly

He's not getting calls he should get He's getting whistled for stuff That no one else would get whistled for And basically there's a big article on the athletic this morning that's basically, I think Sheldon Key said it too,

but basically like, this is obviously a problem, right? Like this is not only just like that refs are doing this, but this is specifically a problem for the Leafs. Yeah. So, and the article, I'm just,

I've just opened it up. I hadn't, I haven't actually read it, but it's got a whole bunch of clips of Michael Bunning, like very obviously. getting fouled and no calls. Now, I will say right off the bat,

you could put that package of like, oh, here's David Pasternak getting tripped, he didn't get a call. And that's the thing, right? Like, you know, there's Euler fans. We've been watching Connor McDavid going, yeah, no kidding, man. Like, welcome to our world.

And this is what both makes the story a little strange. And I think also creates the story is the fact that it's Michael Bunting. that we're talking about. Yeah. Not Mitch Marner, not Austin Matthews. And for, well, for the last two seasons, since he came to Toronto, Michael Bunting has been, he's been a good player, he's on the first line,

you know, his numbers are nice. But I don't think anyone considers this guy a star. And yet, for the first season and a bit, anytime you looked at the leaders for penalties drawn, he was like right there at the top of the list. It would be like Connor McDavid, Michael Bunting, Nathan McKinnon. Like it was a very weird list. And that, hey, drawing penalties is a skill,

both in terms of the things that, you know, putting yourself in the areas where people need to take a penalty, keep your feet moving, all that sort of stuff that you do. Sure. But also, that's beyond. honest, it's the NHL, guys dive, guys embellish. Now hold on a second. Guys sell these calls.

And so when you see a guy like Michael Bunting near the top of the list, you kind of go, eh, is this, you know, is he really drawing these penalties through his play, or is this guy maybe suckering the refs a little bit? And I will tell you, when it got, after the first year, I, me and I would say any Lee fan who was paying attention, knew where this was going. Because we saw it already with most recently Nazim Kadri. The same thing went there. Nazim Kadri was up near the top of the league of drawing penalties.

And then suddenly he just, there were a few articles about it, gets mentioned on Hockey Night Canada, and now he can't draw a call. This is kind of one of those areas where I think there actually is a disadvantage to being a big market team where everything that happens to you is a story. story. Like, I mean, I'm sure there's somebody on Columbus that draws a lot of penalties, but I wouldn't hear about it, and neither would you, and, you know, neither would anybody. But when it's a guy on Toronto, suddenly, you know, the refs kind of look around going, wait, are we getting suckered in by this guy? Why are we calling more penalties on this dude than

on Connor McDavid? And now it's, like, what we've seen is the overcorrection. It's the exact same thing that happened with Cadbury. The last year or so, Cadbury couldn't buy a call. Like, there was a point where I remember like Babcock getting up and being like, okay, like enough. Like, yes, the guy probably did try to draw a few penalties. I don't know what was going on before I got here, but, you know, this guy's getting like tackled. It even had, I mean, I remember it happening with Ty Domi, which was a different case because Domi was, you know, a different sort of player as far as what he was doing to guys. But there was a point where, I mean, he was just getting open field tackled and it never got called because the refs, it's not that the

refs don't like him personally, but the refs are like, no, no, we know that you're the guy who sure suckers us in. So it's become a bit of a story of Toronto. And you know what? I got to say, if you're, you know, if you're not a Leafs fan, obviously, you're kind of rolling your eyes and all this stuff. As a Leafs fan, it's good to see them finally start trying to work the refs publicly a little bit because they haven't really done that very much. And there have been, and I know I can hear the eyes rolling, but especially last year, there were some tough calls that didn't go to the Leafs way. And every team in the NHL plays this game to some extent, and every coach does.

And the Leafs have never been really all that good at it. Maybe under Pac-Quinn. Pack-win was pretty awesome at it, but it hasn't been really a sk-you-know, they're probably going to play another close series where it could come down to one call. getting made at the right time. Awful optimistic. Yeah, maybe. But you know what?

Get it out there now. Don't do it and don't do it during the playoffs. Nobody because then, you know, as soon as in the playoffs when you go, the refs are targeting this guy. Well, that guy's not going to get any calls because now the refs know as soon as I make the call, they're going to say it's because of the coach. Get it out there now. Yeah, you know what?

It's, I'm sure every team's got a guy like this, maybe not as extreme, but a guy like this where they're like, yeah, You know, it's not some unique thing to him or to the Leafs, but it doesn't help that this stuff gets publicized as much as it does when it's going good. And I think, like I said, it's a correction, but it's an overcorrection at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have much else. Does that make sense?

Like, tell me from the outside. As somebody who isn't wearing like the Leaf Homer glasses. Well, I guess, I mean, look, you know, how long. have I been saying they should really just like call more penalties in the game generally speaking like I'm look I'm not sitting here saying uh you know there should

every team should get 10 power plays or whatever but like shouldn't Clark McDavid's drawn 42 minors this year I believe um shouldn't it be like 80 you know what I mean like

there are just some guys who who that is the case for um And it's, I guess, like you say, it's interesting that this seems to mostly be publicized with the Leafs, between Cadre and Bunton. Not that Cadreys played for the Leaf for a while, but you brought him up. But the funny thing, the funny thing about this is, and it says it right in this article here, bunting is still plus two in penalties. Yeah.

You know, and penalties drawn versus committed. like leading the league in that category for a year and a half is it's just um i don't know like you say it really feels like working the refs a little bit but also you know we've seen in the past that refs just decide fuck this guy you know what i mean um the i i was talking to someone recently about the dennis remember dennis wideman may or may not have accidentally cross-checked a linesman i believe right he's a linesman yeah yeah and And the rest were just like, we're giving this guy four minors a game for the rest of his career. Yeah.

Basically. And like, so that's definitely a thing that could be possible. But as the article points out, Bunting's game is towing the line. Yeah. Yeah. And I should say, like, you know, he draws a lot of penalties by going to the dirty areas and all of that stuff. But also, he plays the pest role, right? He's the guy that goes up to somebody, stops just short of getting a penalty,

and then that guy, like, punches him or shoves him or wax him with a stick, and then that guy gets a penalty. Like, that is part of the game. And I've never liked that from anybody. I don't like that that's part of hockey. I don't like that so many other people celebrate that as, like, some sort of skill. So I've got no issue with the refs being, like, you know, doing handling stuff like that the way a parent would, where it's like, well, I mean, you poke.

the bearer, man. Like, yeah, you're both in trouble. But that's not typically what they do. We always, it's an old cliche, right? They always call the retaliation. But now it's like, they're either not calling the retaliation or you're getting those things where like, he will go and shove a guy. Everything's fine. No arms in the air. And then that dude like punches him in the face and the ref's like, all right, you both get a minor. And you're like, why? And it's because the ref just doesn't want to, you know, maybe there was, at some point, maybe there was a call to the refs or, you know, I don't know if they're on a group text or what it is. It says like, hey, this bunting guy is, you know, suckering you guys in. I'm sure those discussions happen

for all sorts of players, but the Leafs are doing the smart thing here. They're just, they're putting, they're planting a seed. Yeah. And it may or may not turn into something in the playoffs, but might as well. I mean, you're all, if, if you're all getting, getting fired if you lose. You might as well try to squeeze every advantage you can. Hold out all the stops. I guess the way I want to leave this here is I'm just going to quote Morgan Riley here. I don't not see it.

Yeah, that's about right. Whereas like, is this like a real issue? Not really, but also is it kind of an issue? Sure. Can't say it better than Morgan Riley there. So let's move on some other. thoughts on last night's games. I don't know what games you personally watched.

I don't watch hockey, but... That's only the smart thing to do here. The team I want to talk about, because I wrote about them over the weekend, and then they shit the bed at home against Chicago in like a must-win game. Absolutely. Calgary Flames.

Humiliating. Disaster. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And by the way, I mean, secondary, but disaster for the Blackhawks as well. Sure. Yeah, they didn't want to win that game. We'll talk about the race to the bottom

in a minute. But, you know, so here's what was really funny about this. Is that before these two games, Darrell Sutter said to the media, we have back-to-back games, Tuesday and Wednesday night. I'm playing Jacob Marksrum, both of them.

And the media's like, you're not worried about the back-to-backs, you know? And Darrell Sutter goes, well, happened the last time he had a back-to-back. He won both of them, and there was travel in the middle. So, you know, he's earned it. He gives up, like, four goals on 21 shots to Chicago. He was not good, which is weird because it's, like, typically, when you're talking about back-to-back, it's the second game you're worried about, right? Yeah, and also, like that,

fatigue and new, not new, I guess, but different, more recent statistical analysis shows that's kind of like not real. Okay, is that true? Yeah, that's in the last like year, somebody wrote a thing that was like, maybe we're overblowing the goalie plays both night of the back-to-backs thing. Because it just kind of stands to reason a little bit in so far as like, in college you're playing two and sometimes even three games back-to-back-to-back. In the AHL, that often happens.

I'm sure it happens all the time in like the CHL. Junior especially, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. these guys are at least somewhat used to it. And I had done a look at like Chicago, college stats a few years ago, and it was kind of the same thing where there was like a little dip in the middle or like on the second game of a back-to-back,

but like, I don't remember, by two or three points off your save percentage. So nothing appreciable. And then if a guy happened to play in a third game in a row, which only really happens in the playoffs, the same percentage went right back to where it was. So it's like maybe this is just like nothing. But anyway. And, you know, we should point out, like,

Markstrom hasn't been great this year. No. No, he has not. It's, it's Dan, Vladder, Vlader. I guess it's technically pronounced Vladash,

but he was just like Vlidar is fine. You could have let me keep trying and, you know, we could have just had it. You would have circled it for a while. Look, I got to catch a flight to Tampa. Two hours, brother. People like, why is this podcast three hours?

What happened? So anyway, the point is, that guy is not very good either this year. So it's not like you have like a clear, this isn't like, hey, Vasilisky is our guy and we're going to start him back to back. But I get where Sutter was coming from. By the way, the last back to back he had gave up four goals in the first game, but Calgary won and then gave up zero on 40 shots in the second game. Okay.

Well, that's what they need tonight because the game tonight is... We're about to get it all back. The game tonight is against Winnipeg. And this is the biggest game of the regular season so far, period, for any team, I would argue. Like, this is as big as it gets. Yeah. I mean, last night had a fairly significant game as well that I also watched the Buffalo, Florida game. But your point is well taken.

The Buffalo Florida game, I didn't include that on my list of important games and Sabres fans were all like, but this is a huge game. And I was like, is it though? Well, so I watched that game because again, like if they, if the Sabres had won, Florida is in a lot of jeopardy to make the playoffs and the Sabres are suddenly like kind of right back in it. But, you know, I watched that game and I said, oh, I felt like the Sabers, like didn't do shit in that game.

Like they, they, they, uh, they, they, they were pretty good defensively, in my opinion. And, and the two, uh, shots that beat Devin Levi were, one was a deflection and the other one was like a goofy bounce, basically. Um, that guy seems good. You're telling me, brother. If I'm a savers fan, I'm, uh, a little excited about that. Yeah. Uh, but, um, they, I just felt like they did. do, they, like, they had a lot of attacking zone time, but I felt like they didn't do much with it, they, you know, missed the net a bunch of times, that kind of thing. So I, yeah, I, I felt like

they kind of know-showed their biggest game a little bit, at least offensively, you know. But, yeah, we were talking about the flames. So the reason this is interesting is it feels like something big is going to happen, regardless of whether they make the playoffs, and now it feels like kind of a long shot that they would. Because their GM's contract is up this summer. And there have been rumors for months like he's not coming back. And yeah, the flames are down to 14%. Says money pocket to...

This was a really... I mean, on the one hand, if you've been a sports fan, you get it. This was the classic like look-ahead game, right? the trap game. You're literally playing the Jets on Wednesday night in a de facto playoff game. For sure. And you're hosting the worst team in the league.

And yeah, you go out and I mean, they didn't play great. It's not like they got goal lead or something like that. Like, I mean, it wasn't one of those. I didn't look at the deserve to window meter, but you know, I don't think it would have. Hey, I'm on MoneyPuck right now. Check it out. But it's just, oh, that's devastating.

Because, you know, all the models that do like your percentage chance of making the playoffs, yeah, it's one loss. But this is a game that the models would have been banking two points for, right? Oh, yeah. And to lose it in regulation. Yeah. For sure. Deserve to win a meter 6040 about for Calgary. Not good enough.

So they deserve to win. Yeah. Not good enough against a terrible team. that is a franchise that's openly trying to lose. That's right, yeah. Obviously, the players aren't. So now they go into, now, the game tonight is still the bigger game. If they win tonight in regulation, that swings.

It's at least a conversation. That swings it right back to, you know, they will, in fact, if they win tonight be tied with Winnipeg in points, although Winnipeg will have a game in hand, which when you're down to three or four games, That is enormous. But, and Winnipeg also holds the tiebreaker regulation wins. So must win for Calgary tonight, probably a must win in regulation.

If Winnipeg wins, I think I saw somewhere that if Winnipeg wins in regulation, it's the magic number is down to one. One win by either Calgary or a loss by, or sorry, win by Winnipeg or a lost by Calgary ends it. As far as the flames go, the predators are still kicking around. But this is, I mean, there's, I said this is the biggest game of the season tonight. Last night was the biggest loss of the season for anybody, for Calgary to blow it. Had to be. Yeah.

Just disastrous. And look, I said, you know, we all know, right? This is, hey, these are the trap games. These are the games where you take your foot off the gas. But we all know it. So do the players. So do the coaches. Like you've got to, you know,

I love Daryl Sutter, but he's got to understand the danger of a game like that and have them ready to go. And they just, you know, they weren't terrible, but they certainly didn't come out and look like, it didn't look like a game where one team had their season on the line and the other team, which is kind of playing out the story. How good or bad you looked in that game is kind of immaterial at that point. Yeah, I mean, look, if you get 55 shots and you get shut out, that's yeah but but even still like there there's no moral victory at this time of year when you're absolutely two points out of the playoffs um but you know i've been saying it for a while the

vibes with this team seem like they are fucked you know and like who knows how much it's again this is just conjecture on my part but it seems very much like the uh the players just aren't happy with the coaching situation where he's kind of being a prick to people for no reason and that kind of thing. And because like you can put up with that when you're winning, right? You can go, okay, he's kind of a prick, but like look at the results we're getting. When you're, and especially because, okay, obviously over the summer, they lose Kachuk and Goddrault.

They get back Huberto dog shit contract, but like he's supposed to be a player. He's not very good this year. Wegar is good this year. He's also extended for a long time. and that in theory is good and they get Nassum Kadri as well but it just felt like to me anyway all the people go oh you know they might take a little step back but they're you know they're gonna be fine I was always kind of sketchy on that because like Marks from overperformed last season Lindholm had 40 40-ish goals last season I don't remember the exact number

Manjia Pani had 35 goals and everybody's like, well, if they just all do that again, they'll be great. And it's like, well, right. If they all have career years, I guess that's true. You know? And so with it looking like the GMs on his way out this summer and like all these guys locked in, I don't know how much there is to fix here necessarily. You know, like obviously the Luchich contract is coming off the books, but who cares? Like, it's only $5 million or whatever it is.

It's not as impactful as you might think that it's only $5 million in a flat cap league because they got to spend that on somebody. Maybe even internal player. It doesn't. But the real question for me is what happens with the coaching this summer. Because, what was it, a five-year contract two years ago, something like that? So he's got some term left, you know? And if the players hate his guts or, you know, or even just kind of. dissatisfied with where things are with him?

I don't know what you do. I don't know who, like, who the new GM is, like, targeting as a way to fix this club. Apparently, he has a, got a two-year extension that kicks in this summer. Okay. So two years left. He's 64. You thought he was older than that, didn't you? I definitely thought he was older than that.

I wouldn't have said much older than that. Like, I wouldn't have thought this is a guy who's close to 70, let's say. But 65, 66 instead of 67, 60. We know that he's happy to go back to the ranch if it comes to that. I mean, I don't. Sure. I don't know. It's, and like you said, who's even making that call.

I didn't think Calgary would be as good as they were last year when they were the best team in the conference record-wise. I didn't see this much of a falloff. Although, again, like we always say it, right? Like, we can sit down an ally, hey, the goalie was good last year and he stinks this year. That's like half of it right there. Oh, I think it's more, like, if he's... You're probably right, yeah. If he's even like a, you know, 0.0 goals saved above expected this year.

I think when I did the math the other day, and it's obviously changed since then, But when I did the math the other day, it was like, oh, he's cost them like five standings points. They have five extra standings points. They're in a playoff spot right now. Kind of comfortably, you know, but that's hockey, I guess. The other thing to say about it, too, is like, even if you would say, even if they make the playoffs, like they come back, they beat the Jets tonight, they win the last few games of the season, they make the playoffs. Is that like good enough for a team where it's like, well, we have to get Hubertow and extend them for eight years. We have to get Weger.

We have to get Cadry. They gave Nazim Kadri a big contract for a guy. They did. Like they gave them the contract you give a guy when you're contending. Yes. And that's the point though, right? It's like they kind of, because of the age of their roster and stuff like that, they were kind of always in a position where it was like, well, they kind of have. have to go for it.

They don't have any prospects, really. And everybody on the team is like 29 to 32 years old. And so, like, they kind of have to go for it. And in that way, signing Nazim Kadri is like kind of a, and trading for Huberto and Uyghur, like, that's kind of, that raises what the floor is for this team, you would have said. And so they're not going to be as good as they were last year. But if they can be like fifth or sixth in the West, you're like, okay, that's great.

You know, but now they're ninth. Yeah, that's the problem. It's going to be a thing. No, but they're not getting better next year, you know, like. You wouldn't think, although it works around, right? Well, I mean, yeah, sure, but like, just the way aging curves work, you're not counting on them. They're going to take the set back to where we thought they would be. Yeah.

No, that's all. It's just really interesting to me to see where things go for them because it feels like they have about a week and a half left in their season. Well, they have 18 hours left in their season if they lose tonight. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying. And I'm really interested to see the dynamic of the game tonight. Because like you said, there's no more mortal victories, obviously.

Yeah. But you've got, you talk about. Calgary being a team where it feels like some of them are checked out on the coach. Look at Winnipeg, right? I mean, Rick Bonas is calling out his own guys and, you know, all this stuff. This is, in theory, this should be a game where both teams are just come charging out, but, you know, who knows? But, I mean, if you want a good playoff race, you're cheering for Calgary tonight in regulation. Because, boy, if Winnipeg wins tonight, I guess it comes to.

down to either Nashville or we're just done in the West. I think the more likely outcome is we're done in the West if that's... In which case, we've got one spot up for... Well, I mean, two spots in the East, but with three teams, and that's it. Which I get, you know, there's a week left in a week and a half left in the season. I guess we can't get two... Yeah, and that race feels like it will come down to, like, pretty close to the last day. Yep.

But, hey, speaking of the Western... and playoff picture. Are you seeing the top of the Central right now? Ooh. 98 points for Colorado. 98 for Dallas. 98 for Minnesota. Colorado has played one fewer game than those other two teams.

And boy, they've been really hot lately. You want to talk about coming down to the wire? And this is the classic thing where, like, you don't want to play any of those three teams. That's it. Minnesota's not looking like, oh, I hope we get Dallas.

instead of Colorado, although down great lately. Yeah. Sometimes you look at it, you get a race like this, and you get, oh, you know, the division's up for grabs, but then you're like, yeah, but look at the wildcard team. Like, it doesn't really matter. This feels like it matters. Because if you win, if you're, if you finish first in this division, you're going to get Seattle. Pretty much. Yep.

If you lose, you are going to get the other team in this group of three that doesn't, that doesn't get the first place. So I mean, Dallas, Minnesota right now, oh, that'd be a hell of a series. That would be really a good one. Whereas Colorado, Seattle, hey, cracking, nice story, nobody's picking Seattle, if that's Yeah, and here's Colorado schedule. If Colorado slips up and it's Colorado against Dallas and Minnesota gets it, completely flips everything. Yeah.

Here's Colorado schedule the rest of the ones. way. San Jose, L.A., Anaheim, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Nashville. It's a lot of winnable games. Yep. And like, because they have the game in hand. And as Calgary just showed us, you've got to go and win the game. Yeah. Yeah, they do. They've got the game in hand. But here's the thing. You know, Dallas's schedule. Philadelphia, Vegas, Detroit, and then St. Louis twice. That's easier, you'd have to say. Might be. Yeah. And then Minnesota, not so easy even out.

Pittsburgh, which, you know, in theory, that's a team fighting for its life, although they're certainly not playing like it. St. Louis, Chicago, Winnipeg, and Nashville. So that's more in the Colorado range of like, those won't be easy games. And especially Winnipeg, Nashville at the end, those could be teams. literally fighting for their playoff lives or they could be teams with absolutely nothing to play for. That last Nashville game, that could be, in theory, that could be a win in your end for Nashville.

Or it could be we chased a playoff spot right up until game 81 and now we know we don't have it, in which case nobody would blame them for just completely rolling over. So, tough to say. Strength of schedule is, I'm not saying it's meaningless at this point, but it's really hard to figure out. Like, you got a little bit.

Yeah, because it's all just like one game. Yeah. And it's like, oh, we play the Leafs. Oh, they're a good team. Yeah, but they don't have, they have nothing to play for. They're resting guys. Who cares? So can we talk about the bottom of the standings? Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah, let me lead off with this. I had this idea the other day. Here's my idea. People, oh, we hate tanking, you know, the draft lottery.

Yeah. Whatever. Maybe someone has proposed this before, but I think it would be funny if they did this. They hold the draft lottery before the first game of the season. And they say, if you finish eighth, you get the number one pick. I love it. Or whatever, you know, oh, the, you're like trying to land a helicopter at that point.

That's exactly right. Like, just to see Chicago try to really put together a run so they can finish sixth from the bottom instead of third from the bottom. Or to see a team that is currently seventh be like, we're resting everybody tonight. That's it, you know? Let's just get stupid.

By the way, just to throw the teas out there, I have an even dumber idea about the draft lottery. Oh, okay. It's coming on Friday, I think. This is, it's so dumb that even I didn't think of it. A reader sent it to me, but yeah, so that's, that's, that's really. It's dumb. No, see, that's something I wouldn't involve in myself.

Damn it, edit that out, Katie. Put in my voice saying smart and... Cool. All right, so here's where we're at the bottom of the standings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just... We've got Anaheim, Columbus, Chicago, all tied. 56 points each, 77 games played each.

Yep. The tiebreaker is regulation wins. So keep in mind to get the... the odds you want to have fewer of those. Anaheim somehow has only got 13. That's insane. Columbus 15, Chicago 17. So not locked in that that's the order for the tiebreaker, but probably.

Probably. I mean, I don't think Columbus is going to win three games. Put it this way. If Anaheim wins three more games in regulation of the last five, they're not going to be tied with Columbus or Chicago. Bingo, yeah. So it's really down to those three. And then here's the other thing I just will point out.

Anaheim has 23 wins out of 77 games. Columbus has 24 wins out of 77 games. Chicago has 25 wins out of 77 games. Those are the three teams that are still in the running for the top chance at Connor Bedard. Yep. San Jose, 22 wins. But they are not in the running. Because they've got 60 points because of the stupid loser point.

They have more loser points than anyone because they keep going to overtime. Put the puck in your own net. What are you doing? Tough break, San Jose. That's a rough one. Pull the goalie, man. You can't pull the goalie in overtime,

so do it with two minutes left and... Here's the thing. You can pull the goalie in overtime because then you don't get the loser point. Dude, even better. Yeah. Can't pull the goalie if you don't even put the goalie out there to start overtime.

Saying brother. Pointing Edhead Giff. So who do you got? Anaheim, Columbus, Chicago. As you laid out here, I think Anaheim kind of has the inside track just because Anaheim has lost eight in a row. Yeah, they stink. They're really bad. But they have so few regulation wins in general. And the rest of the way, they have, yeah, they have Arizona and Vancouver.

Now granted, those are two teams they're looking up at in the standings. But Edmonton, Colorado, and Los Angeles. Angeles. As we said, Colorado has something to play for, right? And, um, and I think Edmonton and L.A. are both kind of playing for home ice. All those guys on, on the oilers are going to be trying to, you know, McDavid still, he's not going to get to 70 goals now, but he's still thrown away from 150 points. Well, he gets to play Anaheim, so let's hold off. No two ways about that. But it would take some do it. I think he's at 62. So, you know, he'd have to have a classic Ovec trick, as they say, to get there.

But yeah, it's... Columbus finishes with Jersey, Rangers, Flyers, Penguins, Sabers. Those are all games they should lose pretty comfortable. Sabers won't have anything to play for. Flyers are bad, but the game is in Philadelphia. Chicago finishes at Vancouver, at Seattle, home to Minnesota, at Pittsburgh, who should still be fighting and clawing, and home to Philadelphia.

I mean, it's very much up for grabs, but, boy, that Chicago win last night. And I hate this. I hate that we do this this time of year. But it, yeah, that win by Chicago last night was potentially disasters. Now, what if we already knew that the seventh overall, or the seventh from the bottom team? Then we're talking about, okay, let's see here. What if we had the goal plan and that two points moved them up the standings?

It would be so good. One thing I do want to point out when it comes to the lottery, because I had this conversation with someone this week, and it occurred to me that I think people don't necessarily understand us about the lottery. Yeah. Is, you know, the person was like, you know, are we, why are we going so crazy over, like, it's still a lottery.

You're just getting percentage chances, and the number one team is like 18.5%. The number two team is like 13%. Yeah. So it's 5%. okay, but don't forget, every team is in the lottery, but those bottom five teams can't move up to number one, but they can still win the lottery,

which means if any of those teams win the lottery, the team that finishes last still gets the number one pick. So that actually adds, like, it's only like 5%, but it puts them up to like 25%, not to win the lottery, but to have the number one overall pick. So it actually, the difference between one and, two is pretty big. It's a lot bigger than you probably think, and then you're used to under the old system

where if that 14th place team won the lottery, they moved all the way up. They don't do that anymore, which means if that happens, the team that finishes dead last gets Connor Bedard. So it's, it actually makes a big difference. This is an important race. Yeah, no, for sure. To, okay, we had a listener question on the mailbag from the Patreon. I thought this was a good one for the main show

because it's a good way to talk about it. William asked us between Pittsburgh, Florida, and the Islanders, which team would that be like the biggest failure for missing the playoffs? Which of those three teams? I think, I mean, I think Florida is the best of those three teams

and I think that franchise-wise for them to finally be building some momentum and to blow it this year would be would be huge. But I don't see how you can't say Pittsburgh, given how they had an opportunity to reset last year with the guy's contracts coming up, pushed all the chips back in and said,

we're going again with this core, to miss the playoffs flat out. I think it's them. I think you're probably right. But I guess the, like the Islanders had always, felt like they would be kind of around the playoffs, but whether they made it or not

was like kind of, I don't want to say a coin flip just because they have the Like they had just missed the playoffs. Yeah, that's exactly right. But for Florida, like, I wonder what the ramifications are in terms of, hey, didn't you

just let the guy who like won the president's trophy as the coach? Didn't you just let that guy go for no reason? isn't at all, and now he's like the coach of one of the, the assistant coach or associate coach or whatever of one of the best teams in the league. Mm-hmm. I hate to be, I hate to be making that mistake as a GM, but. Yep.

That, yeah. So, yeah, that's all I wanted to say about, about that. Seems like it could go either way. And it seems like. So who do you have out of that? Because I guess we should, we should run that down, too, as far as who's where. Florida and the Islanders tied at 87 points, Pittsburgh at 86. They each have four games left.

Florida right now owns the tiebreaker, but it's just by one over the Islanders, so that could change. Pittsburgh's way back on the tiebreaker. So Pittsburgh is really a point and a half back. And it is for that reason, I will say that the two teams currently in a playoff spot will hold on to that. And like, look, I'm pro Sidney Crosby. It brings me no pleasure to report this.

But it feels like that's a wrap on their run of playoff appearances. Did you see that if Pittsburgh misses, obviously, that snaps the 16-year streak? Yeah. And that the next two, what were the next two streaks? Washington is one, and that's going to end. That's over, yep. And the other one was... I did not see whatever this is.

Okay. So there's another team that has like an eight-year streak that is about to end. And so do you know who now has, or who, if it ends this way, who will have the longest active playoff streak? The way you're phrasing it to me is I feel like the answer is the Leafs. The Toronto Maple Leafs, baby. An unparalleled streak of excellence. I will say, can I just, people are going to be so mad at this.

take. I fucking can't stand all the fucking first round jokes. We get it. You know, like, it's just like, oh, damn, sky sure is blue today. Yeah, no shit. We, we know that. You know what I mean? Like, I just, you know me, I'm not a big Leafs fan or whatever, you know, unlike some people on this podcast. But it's just like, it's just like the Jamie Ben joke. It's like, get a fucking new one. There's so much shit to make fun of with the Leafs. I will defend the Jamie Ben. joke still how long ago for real how long ago was that like 12 fucking years something like

that yeah so I mean on on on my list of funny jokes like that that joke is still going up but what would you say it's doing on your list right that's exactly right okay um Nashville by the way is the other team that has currently an eight year street

which I wouldn't have obviously I wouldn't have guessed because it I had to yeah you know they've been sliding a little bit They're not, you know. Going back to the president's trophy. Yeah. It's final days.

But it's the classic thing of like, how much do people really care if you just kind of get into the playoffs every year? You know? Yeah. Like people just don't really give a shit or take much notice if you're just like the seventh or eighth team every year for four or five. They have lost in the first round four years in a row. They're like the freaking leaves. They're like the freaking leaves. One last thing.

You brought this up to me last night. Do I have any thoughts on the Bruins? Yeah. Closing the gap on the whatever, 77, 78 Canadians? It feels like we're going to do this argument in a week or so, because Boston is already at 60 wins. Yeah, they are seven points away from passing the Canadians with, five games to play.

There's three behind the Tampa team from 1819. This feels like a done deal. Yeah, and also the, so the wins record, which is 62, which I think is those 70s Canadians. They need three to pass that, which, you know, three and of their last five, given they may be resting guys, what have you. All the guys they've been resting lately, they haven't missed a fucking beat.

It's crazy. They're like, oh, we're going to hold out every all-star, and they're like, yeah, we won four to one. So I'll say two things. First of all, I feel like we're not making a big enough deal out of how insanely good the Boston Bruins are this year. It's become, like, you know, like, it's been so obvious from day one. And I mean, like, it kind of has to be for them to get the 60 wins with five games to play, right? But like, there was just never, like, I feel like we got that amazement out of the way in like November where we were like, oh, and they didn't have Marshand and McAvoy this whole time. And they still kick the shit out of everybody for a whole month.

Maybe that's it, yeah. I feel like that's probably what happened. To me, it feels like we made a bigger deal out of the lightning doing it a few years ago. And maybe the fact that the lightning went and crap the bed in the playoffs is kind of muted it because even ruins themselves or like, we didn't. don't care, don't talk about records, blah, blah, blah, which is, which is great, by the way. I'm sure the league loves that when there's a hit, like, all-time record being chased, and the people chasing it are like, this sucks, don't talk about it. Well, I mean, that's just hockey guy shit, right?

Like, there's no avoiding that if you're a hockey guy. Like, if you say, I think it's cool, how many people on hockey night in Canada are going to be frowning at you about that, you know? A good number. but I guess the other thing with the Bruins is the number of injuries they've gone through this year you know like they they just don't miss a beat it's crazy and I guess I don't have a ton to ton else to say about that except so if they break the record yeah are we like do we with

the obvious caveat that, you know, they won't be the great best team ever unless they win the cup or anything like that. But, like, how do you compare that to, specifically to the 70s halves? Like, I actually find this interesting because, and I haven't decided I might even write a thing about it. But, like, I know that there's a lot of people that right away they'll be like, hey, loser point, blah, blah, forget it. Yeah, sure. You know, when nobody, this is in the era of inflated records where everyone's over 500 and all this stuff, you can't compare this team to a team in the 70s where not only was there no loser point, there wasn't even overtime. And that season was two games shorter, by the way. So even that plays in.

And yet also, though, like back in the 70s, expansion, WHA wateredown league. versus today, the era of parody, like, where everybody... Yeah, there's a salary cap. You don't just, like, get players for free. Exactly. No. To do it right now, in a way, feels more impressive than doing the 70s. I said it about the lightning than four or five years ago, whatever it was.

The, the lightning team is what they did is more impressive than what the... Now, granted, I'm not 60 years old, so, like, this is going to really... go up against what everybody who remembers, you know, like, adjusting their antenna to, ladies and gentlemen and all the Sips and C, it's hockey net and get her. Yeah, okay, great, you know.

But. Feels a little personal, but okay. I was saying, you know, let's say certain older people in the greater Montreal area will be pushing back against this. But my point, my point being, like,

again, like they've invented goal tending since those years. You know what I mean? Like they came up with a way where every goalie is like kind of good. So that alone. I'm like, okay, well, that's it. But this is the other thing about, uh, why aren't we talking about this more? The lightning just did it.

Now granted, they just shit their pants in the playoffs. But like, it's the same thing about like I made a huge deal about, oh shit, Kuturov is going to pass Thornton for like the capierest scoring record. And now that's happened like four times. And it's like, I guess I don't fucking think about that anymore. You know what I mean? Like, the game is just. But it shouldn't, right?

Like, I mean, and I guess you're right. Well, yes and no. If five years from now we're, I mean, I'm trying to, if Jack Hughes is chasing 150 points, then yeah, we'll probably be like, it won't feel like it's big a deal as Connor McGaveh doing it this year, but it's supposed to be harder to do it now than it used to be. And it's supposed to be harder to run away from the pack. Well, I, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to, like, besmirch the great Buzz Aldrin here. But, like, Neil Armstrong is the first man on the moon. And a lot of people know that. What's the

percentage that also know Buzz Aldrin was two? You know what I mean? Yep. And it is that simple. And God. I don't think anybody on Earth knows who the third guy on the moon was. And so I think that's part of it too. I mean, now here's the other thing you could argue when it comes to the Bruins is that I think you can make an argument that what the Lightning did was actually more impressive. Regular season only, put aside the playoffs, because they didn't do it in the Connor Boudard year when a bunch of teams are five to eight teams are openly trying to lose. I think I looked at it in the year that the,

the lightning did it. I think the senators finished dead last and they were the only team under 70 points. Whereas this year, there's going to be a lot of teams under 70 points. And I'm looking at the 77 habs. There were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teams in a 14 team league. So half the league finished 400 or worse that year. There were a lot of really, really bad teams. Now, that's no losing. loser points, so, you know, adjust what have you. But there were some truly, truly terrible teams that year. And then like four good ones, basically.

There were five good teams and 16 teams that were essentially 500 or worse that year. I was just about to say they didn't have 10 good NHL teams until like 1986. If then, yeah. Yeah. So that's really what it boils down to. But, you know, if you want to say the Bruins and the Lightning are on par with one another, I guess I would accept that, but I would also say, you know, like look at the standings. And I'll tell you, man, when they...

When they end up facing the islanders or whoever and we all go, oh, Boston will win for sure, you're going to hear some of those Tampa comparisons then, too. Oh, yeah, of course. They haven't played a beautiful game in nine years. Which of those three teams scares you the most if you're Boston? Like it's the Islanders, right? Yeah, got it. Because they got the goalie.

Yeah. But hey, mentioning the goalie, why don't we take a break? We'll come back and do some awards talk. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks. Everything's getting more expensive these days. Have you seen the freaking gas prices? Have you seen the freaking coffee prices? That's why, you know, you're always trying to look for a new angle, way to save a little bit of money.

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That's athletic greens.com slash puck. Check it out. All right, we're back and we're going to get into everybody's favorite damn topic, some awards talk. And the reason that this comes up is that I saw the other day a screenshot from our friend Jimmy Shapiro, who's like the guy who emails 95% of hockey germans. I find myself outside that top 5%, but this is what the screenshot says. I've been sending out awards odds for the NHL for over 15 years.

This is the first time ever that all awards are off the board due to sizable leads for each individual award. And then there's like a big long quote about like Carter McDavid was the one to 100 favorite to win the Hart Trophy last month and people were still betting it like crazy. Now, that's the interesting thing to me, is that people are still dropping money on these guys. Because typically, like...

It's free money at that point. But it has to be like free money. Because typically, like, an odds maker will... Even if something is an overwhelming favor, they just make the odds huge. Yeah. To the point where you're almost... You're barely even paying out if they win,

but, you know, if... It has to be a complete sure thing. I would say the Hart Trophy probably is at this point. I mean... Yeah, so this is what the quote says. We expect these players to run away with their respective awards. Connor McDavid for the Heart and Rocket Richard, Linus Olmark for the Vesna,

Maddie Baneers for the Calder, Eric Carlson for the Norris, and Jim Montgomery for Jack Adams. I think the gimmick would be that, like, if you ran all those guys as a parlay, you could make... a decent amount of money off it, obviously the odds would not be in your favor. Sure.

Now, again, I think I, did I tell you my, my sports gambling story, Sean? You did, yeah. You got free money and you turned out to be so good at it that you want a ton of money and now you're quitting the writing and podcasting game and becoming a full-time, a sharp, as they say. That's right. No, I, yeah, I got, I was just like, oh, fuck it, I'll sign up for, for a couple of these sites. They're giving you, like, $300 worth of free bets. And what I mostly did was just, like, split the odds on these bets.

So I got, like, half of the money back. And then it's like, oh, I got, like, $150 off this website or whatever, you know? But on one of them, I was like, you know what, I'll just put this, like, $200 bet on one parlay. And it hit, and I won, like, a lot of money. and I was like Oh wow Like I felt horrible Waiting for this result to come in

And even though I want a bunch of money I don't want to do this again And so I cashed out and deleted the app and all that Good call Yeah no So I'm up I'm up in the four figures I'm feeling good about it

But I was just like Yeah I can't Like Watching this Pistens Bucks game last week I felt fucking awful. Just waiting for four guys to, like, you know, get to seven assists. Now, we should say that as part of this,

and maybe part of the reason you felt bad, is that you were also locked in your own jewelry store for the entire game. So there was a little bit of tension. Still one of the funniest lines in movie history. He picked the Celtics to win the opening face off. And they win it. And he goes, and he goes,

if they hadn't had done that, I'd have been in a lot of trouble. Yeah, that's right. Yes, you would have. But yeah, let me, I guess again, like let's, like I said, McDavid for the Heart and Rocket Richard, Allmark for the Vezna, Baneers for the Calder, Eric Carlson for the Norris and Jim Montgomery for the Jack Adams. That's not about right to you?

I mean, I certainly would, each of those individual names would be my favorite. No, I'm saying like, but. Not favorite necessarily, because it does feel like that. Those are the favorites. I'm saying, would those be your picks? I haven't sat down to dig into it. I haven't sat down to dig into it. And McDavid, yes, obviously.

Well, don't say obviously. This guy, Grink Badinsky, he asked a bunch of voters. And one guy had Pasternak and one guy, or gal, I shouldn't say guy for sure. but one voter had Pasternuck and one voter had Tage Thompson These are people who aren't taking the fucking award seriously

turning your fucking membership card I would assume the Tage Thompson thing is somebody contingent on them Maybe ask like five days ago That if they get in the playoffs by one point then sure

And yeah Even the Pasternak thing was like Well he's leading his team by so many points, but, like, are we making the argument that Bruins aren't a talented team? Like, I get that, you know, McDavid's got Drusitle there, but, you know, it's, I, I maintain my stance. Obviously, Connor McDavid.

Obviously. Fucking obvious. Maddie Baneers, yes. Jim Montgomery at this point, I think, sure. Now, I've seen an argument that I don't agree with, but I've seen an argument, and I don't think it's a terrible one for Lindy Ruff. Yeah.

I fucking fired this guy. I think Lindy Ruff, even two weeks ago, would have had a stronger case. Yeah. The devils have flattened off. Earlier in the year, you know, I said Cassidy and Vegas was potentially on the list.

Rick Bonas, two months ago would have been on the list, but it's not two months ago. So I think you know, Montgomery is good. I mean, the fact that also he's got the great story. and all of that stuff is going to help. So I, and I'm good with that. Allmark, I think, would be my pick, although this is, you know, in that territory.

Not that it's up to the writers, but. Yeah, it's not. That one's the GMs. GMs, yeah. I feel, you know, I think Allmark would be my pick. I think he's close to a lock to win. I think I would vote. I think he's a lock to win.

If I was, if I were a GM, well, first of all, there'd be a lot of fucking changes around here. But second of all, I'd have to go with Sorokin. I mean, look at the, look at how bad the Islanders have been for much of the season, you know? Yeah. GMs typically, they love the wins. They love a winner. Boy, do they? So I think he does get it. And then, you know, I think I would vote Eric Carlson right now. But this is the one that surprises me as being taken off the board. I mean, put it this way. I totally agree. If I was writing a sports book and I had, you know, and they said McDavid was one to 100, if I, you know, if I put Carlson at one to 100 or one to 10 or one to 50 or whatever and I'm still getting money coming in on him, I'm happy to take that money because I don't think it's a sure thing that he wins. I think the case for Adam Fox, the case for, for a few other guys, you know, Kail McCr. maybe, but there's like, Shane has got a good piece on the athletic

that just went up a couple days ago running down the contenders. Like, I don't think this one's a done deal. No, I agree with you. This one feels wide open. Baneer's winning the Calder, to a lesser extent, it feels like there are at least other options out there

that are perfectly reasonable. Maselli in Arizona seems to be the one that stands out to me the most, although, you know, people like Owen Power too. But like you say, Adam Fox is like right fucking there with Carlson for me. But I think probably the story is just so undeniable. You know, like you said with Montgomery, the story is just like so obvious. Like we thought this guy was fucking cooked.

They traded Brent Burns, but they had to keep Carlson. and then Carlson put up maybe a hundred points season. And I do think that's, you know, and it shouldn't be, but if he gets to 100 versus if he stalls out at 98, I think does move the needle. Did Yossi win when he got to 96? He didn't, right? No, he didn't.

That was McCar, like you. Yeah. The other thing that I think helps Carlson is he's sort of felt like the frontrunner all year for the reasons you mentioned. I mean, he's playing great, but all the car. also. And so it kind of feels like it's going to come down to Carlson versus not Carlson. Carlson versus the, do I go a little deeper than points? Do I put, you know, do I want to be one of those writers who digs deeper and realizes that, you know, maybe there's somebody else? But the

problem is the somebody else, yeah, there's Adam Fox, there's McCar, there's Lindholm, there's Dougie Hamilton. Guys, you know, I think the not Carlson faction splits the vote. vote enough that Carlson wins based on the half the writers who will just go 100 points for a last place team. Are you kidding me? This is the guy. But again, to take it off the board, I don't know, man. I'd put it this way.

If it was still on the board and the odds reflected their high degree of confidence, I'd be throwing money on all the other guys. you know, if you want to give me Adam Fox at 10 or 20 to 1, I'll absolutely take a swing at that. I totally agree with you. The one last award I wanted to talk about very quickly here is, again, it feels like it's fucking guaranteed. It's sewn up. This is over. And it wasn't on their board is the Selke.

Like they just didn't make mention of the Selke at all. You know, but it's like Patrice Virgeron's winning this. We don't even have to have a vote. We're just going to hand him the award. It's fascinating to me that it feels like the biggest discussion about the Selke this year is should we just name it to Patrice Bergeron at this point? No shit, right? Like should he come up and they're like, come on up and get the Selky and then like he gets there and they like pull it away and they're like, wait, we've been told that there's a change.

It's actually the Patrice Bergeron war now. And also Mitch Martner won it. come on up, Mitch. Yeah. That one is, did they even mention that in their little blur? No, not mentioned at all. They don't even, I love it. I love it.

I wonder if they were, I don't know why they wouldn't take bets on it, but I wonder if they were just not taking bets on it because it's like, hey, look, you know, this one's over. But, yeah, Bergeron, this will be a sixth award. Nobody else has four. so that's 50% more than Bob Ganey now. And like, yeah, obviously he, you know, he might not retire this year,

but it just does, it does really feel like, what are we even doing here anymore? We're just, until he retires, they're just going to give him this award, which I'm not even necessarily against because it's better than the, the way it was working for a little while there

where they were like, well, this guy had a good defensive, a good defensive season like two years ago. So he feels due. Yeah. You know, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the Coturrier one kind of stands out to me. I guess, um, was it, Barcov had one where I was just like, what?

That, that's the year he wins it for. Okay. All right. Yeah. Um, but yeah. No, um, that, that, that one feels like it's over. Was there any other, is there any other reward to even really talk about? I guess the lady bang, but who gives a shit.

Nobody. I literally. Including the guys who win it. Mostly. Yeah. I don't even know who would have the inside track on that. I don't care to sort by penalty minutes. You probably get into some interesting stuff on like the individual all-star spots.

Sure. Who's each of the wings in that. And the goalie is interesting because I think it'll be interesting to see the voting on that because the all-star goalie is voted by the. writers. So you can kind of compare that to what the GMs do with the Bezina and see, but I think that'll probably be Elmark as well. Yeah. Have you

seen the controversy around the Hobie Baker Award? No. Okay. So this gets into the Lady Bing thing, kind of jogged my memory. So you've heard of this kid Adam Fantilli, right? Yeah, I have, yeah. Yeah. So he's up for the Hobie Baker award.

He scored more points per game than Jack Eichel did when Jack Eichael was a draft eligible NCAA player. That, like, that's crazy that someone did that, you know, because Eichael had arguably the best draft eligible season for any, any player, certainly since Paul Korea, I would argue, more impressive a season than Paul Korea because, you know, all the stuff about, like, they, they know how to do goaltending now and stuff like that, you know. and college hockey is a lot more kind of professionalized isn't the right word,

but like a more serious development league and all that kind of stuff. Another guy in the Hobie Hat trick, the three finalists for the Hobie Baker Award, Logan Coley. You heard of him, right? He was, I think, third overall pick last year. Yeah, he's really, really good. And then the third guy is this guy, Matthew Nyes. You've definitely heard of him.

I have, yeah. I think he's going to win because he's the best player. Well, so I'm just going to read you the point totals for these three players. And this award is for the most outstanding player in college hockey. 64 for Fantilli in just 35 games. That's crazy. 57 for Logan Cooley in 37 games. 41 for Matthew Nyes and 38 games.

close enough one of the classic one of these things is not like the other Nyes is tied for 18th in total points this season in points per game

it's probably even lower than that it is 24th but this is where the controversy comes in Adam Fantilli was kicked out of a game for fighting

against Michigan State earlier this season. Oh, okay. And you can't fight in college hockey. You get thrown out of the game and immediately suspended for the next one automatically. And this was a thing where, like, there was a scrum, he broke away from the scrum, a guy followed him, they shoved a little bit.

The guy punched him in the face, gloves on. Right, gloves cage. Yeah. And Fantilli dropped the gloves and threw a punch back. Now, as you say, the guy was wearing a cage, how smart was that, you know? But that's why he got kicked out of the game. Logan Coolly got kicked out of a game, I want to say against Wisconsin, like a couple weeks later, for an insanely dangerous hit.

I linked it in my Hobie Baker thing that I wrote for EP Rinkside. And it is crazy how fucking dangerous this hit is. Like, if this was the NHL, he would have gotten four games. But you only get one in college hockey, basically. Or I don't even think he got suspended. I think he just got the gate and that was that. But I can double check on that. Yeah, I don't think he got the gate.

Anyway, point being, too incredibly, well, one was stupid. One was just like super fucking dangerous. And one of the core components of the Hobie Baker award, in fact the first one they list on the website is they have to be like strong character or some bullshit like that and so they're like well we can't give it to Adam Fantilli because he punched a guy

we can't give it to Logan Coley who's because uh... we saying this so and isn't this isn't this the fucking question Sean because this is voted on by a wide variety of people in and around college hockey. I know like NHL greats, American NHL grades are on this committee.

I know a bunch of reporters who cover college hockey are on this committee. Coaches, athletic directors, like, but this is an award voted on by primarily what I would say the majority of the makeup is what you would call your 200 hockey. men. Now, there's not 200 of them, but these are the people. And so, there

is a real strong opinion that Fantilli might lose out on this award because of the fighting thing. And in fact, I was told that one person on the conference call said, and I don't

want to say this is a direct quote, but this is certainly the thrust of what they were going for. What would Hobie Baker think of Adam Fantilla? really punching that guy. Has nobody ever... I'm sorry, I don't follow... Hobie Baker died in 1918, by the way.

This seems very stupid to me. Okay. Oh, yeah, that's exactly right. All right. So back in 1918 when nobody in hockey ever punched each other. Jesus. Has nobody ever won the Kobe Baker

that had had a fight before? Like, is this... No, I know it's very rare. It's so rare in college hockey. It's shockingly rare. But this is the thing, is when it comes to the Hobie Baker, especially if we're dealing with someone where it's their first year in college hockey and it's widely believed they will be going pro at the end of that season, they are looking for a fucking excuse to give it to literally anybody else. And so, Nyes, here comes Matthew Nyes, a second year player who will be going pro, but he did his time a little bit more. and it's interesting because this is the other thing I didn't tell you.

Logan Cooley, he plays for Minnesota. Matthew Nyes, he also plays for Minnesota. Jimmy Snuggaroot, who finished, I want to say fifth in the country in scoring this year, he plays for Minnesota. And in fact, all three of those guys play on the same line. So there's two line mates up for the best player in the country award. Which like, you know, McDavid, dry-sidal, you could say, you know. But it's the classic thing of, well, look, he plays all 200 feet.

Matthew Nyes does. Logan Cooley? Maybe not so much. And it's like, they're on the same line. Uh-huh. Yeah. How do you slice it that thin? Uh-huh.

But, yeah. So, okay, so part of my ignorance, but we've got the three finalists. Is this like the NHL awards where the three finalists are just the top three, and then you announce who the top three were, and then you reveal who actually won? Or is this like three finalists and now the 200 hockey men pick for those three? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. But I do know as a guy, I vote on the goalie of the year award in college hockey,

the Mike Richter award. Oh, very cool. And that is one that they go, like, keep an eye on these, like, 60 goalies. Like, basically every starter in the country almost. And then it's a certain point they go, okay, we're down to 10 goalies. Keep an eye on these guys for the next month or two. Okay, these are the three finalists. And, like, we're voting at every step of the process.

Like, pick three guys from these 10 to advance. And then, after another couple of weeks, put these three guys. eyes and hoarder is basically how it works. Okay. And so, like, again, this is the Hobie Baker thing. Last year, the guy who won the Hobie Baker was the goal was a goalie. The guy who won the Mike Richter Award as the best goalie in the country was not the same goalie as the one who won the Hobie. Which one was the Dryden guy that the Leafs have now?

Dryden McKay won the one the one the, the, uh, won the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Kevin Levi, who's up for the Mike Rick to reward again this year after winning it last year. And I'll just say it right now. I voted for Devin Levi as the goalie of the year again this season. Led the country and save percentage faced like 12 and a half high danger chances per 60 minutes, like a lot, you know, which is a lot. And so I was like the classic thing of like, much like Ilya Serocha, and you looked at Devin Levi and you said, said, well, this is the best fucking goalie in the country. Look how bad the team in front of them was, you know?

And so, again, like, it just becomes a 200 hockey men thing. We don't want to give it to a first-year player. And Fantilli and Cooley are both freshmen. Nise is a second-year player. And the guy who should have been the third nominee for the hobie, Lane Hudson, who's a Canadian's pick, plays for BU. I can't remember the goal difference off the top of my head, but they're like plus 50 or something like that when he's on the ice this season.

He's also a freshman, but he has more points in his, as a U-19 freshman in college hockey, defenseman, then Brian leached in like 1987. Pretty good. Yeah. And he didn't end up in the Hobie hat trick because there was, just no fucking way these guys were ever going to let three freshmen get into the...

Right. So you're telling me there's a chance to Niz might act. Because I had heard that he was nominated and obviously he's at least prospect and he's going to be the one who comes in and saves us all in the playoffs. So I was... That's right. I heard, you know, it was cool that he was nominated, but I was like, oh, he's not beaten either of those two guys.

But it sounds like maybe. There's a chance. Yeah. So I still think Fantilli is going to win it because a lot of the people who are objecting to Fantilly for bullshit reasons, fake reasons. Are Minnesota, guys from Minnesota, let's say, or who have Minnesota ties or whatever you want to say. Again, this is just my, I'm not voting on the committee, this is just what people who are on the committee who I have talked to tell me. And I wonder how much then Cooley and Nyes will split the vote because they are line mates.

and Fantilli still wins it. When do we find out? When does the... Thursday. No, Friday, sorry. Oh, cool. The Hobie and the Mike Richter award are revealed on Friday. So, just, I figured you'd be interested in that,

both from the drama aspect of it and the fact that there's a Leaf Sky. But, yeah, hey. Long story short, if anybody stepped away, Ryan Lambert supports fighting and wants the fighting guy to win the award. I guess I support throwing one gloved punch to a guy wearing a full-face shield. Yeah. Feels reasonable. As not being like the most dastardly thing anybody has ever done. But yeah, I guess the other thing to say is I'm just excited for the Frozen Four.

I'm leaving later today. to go down to Tampa. Good. And give a beautiful gift to the college hockey world. I'm glad you have a functional airport. I should mention this just only if people are hearing noise in the background. Ottawa is, as we record this, in the middle of a thunder ice storm, which I didn't even know was a thing.

But we're getting one right now. We are getting absolutely pelted with frozen rain and thunder at the same time. I'm like looking out my window watching cars get completely. completely encrusted. Yeah, that sucks. Well, there you go. Yeah, I wasn't going anywhere. No.

So long as something doesn't directly impact me, it's fine. Why don't we take another break? We'll be back to talk about one or two more things. And yeah, that's that. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Hello Fresh. And with Hello Fresh, you get Farm Fresh, pre-portioned, ingredients and seasonal recipes all delivered right to your doorstep. You can skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy,

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Chris LaTang just got to a thousand games. Good for him. Yeah, very cool. Everything's going great for him these days. He's very good. Well, it's funny because, like, I said this when it happened, but I was like, if you told me, like, he got to it four years ago, I'd have been like, oh, that makes perfect sense.

Yep. And obviously, he's missed time for a lot of different reasons. but it's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, that guy has been around fucking forever. And I've been a really, really, really good player the whole time. I saw some people going like, you know, is it Hall of Fame versus Hall of Very Good kind of a thing? And in my recollection, has he won a Norris?

I don't think he has, right? He has not won a Norris. I believe. he had a year where he was maybe runner-up. Hold on, I'm looking at it. No, he was third one year. He said he's been a finalist once. He has finished four.

Top seven, one, two, three, four, five times. Yeah. Top ten, seven times. So, you know, but he's been in the league for 17 seasons. That's crazy. That's so many. He and both he and Malcolm, I think, are the two guys that have never missed the playoffs in their career. I said Crosby in my column this week, but he actually missed his first year.

The first year, yeah. And then they came in. Both of them have themselves missed the playoffs because they were injured for an entire playoff season, but they have never missed the playoffs before. Yeah. Do you have an opinion, Hall of Very Good versus Hall of Fame? To me, he's not quite. Hall of Fame, but he's in that group of guys

where if he did make it, I'd be like, yeah, okay. I mean, the fact that he has the three cup rings will help. He was a two-time All-Star, which is, you know, not great Hall of Fame numbers, but it's not bad. He's sort of

in the Ryan Suter zone for me, right? Yeah, I think certainly in his prime, he was better than Ryan Souter, and the being an all-star thing, like, obviously that that matters historically speaking but like he did play in like kind of a golden age of defenseman and so you know it's like the thing where it's like hey you were like the you know fourth best forward in the league but the two in front of you were two of the three in front of you

were gretsky and lemieux tough shit buddy you know what i mean like it's kind of the same thing for for le tang for me with that maybe he's not quite at that level but he's not quite at that level but he's in that conversation, certainly. And the other part of his story is the guy couldn't stay fucking healthy, right? He had one season where he played 82 games, and that was in 2010-11. He was 23 years old. Yeah, and, you know, he had a couple of seasons where he played like 78, 79, 74, whatever. But, you know, health has to come into it.

think that, you know, we've seen guys who had health issues, usually the ones that, like, really ended their careers instead of just, like, limiting their games played and their point totals and stuff like that. But I kind of agree, I guess my point is, I kind of agree with you that he is not a Hall of Famer for me, but that will not stop them from putting in the Hall of Fame. I think he is basically a lock to make it. it, whether he should is kind of, I'm like you, I'm kind of nebulous on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Like there are guys where, you know, I hear people talk about, oh yeah, he's going to the Hall of Fame. And I'm like, ah, that bugs me. It doesn't bug me for him. And also, I mean, you're right.

He missed a bunch of time, but, I mean, the guy had, got a stroke twice. Twice, yeah. He gets hit in the face with a pot. Like, he's not, like, he's missed a lot, but you never, I wouldn't say never, but he doesn't feel like, a guy where the fragile label gets attached to him or that, you know, he's stuff happens. But even thought, looking at his, like, year-by-year stats, the guys just never plays like 70 games,

you know, it's very rare. He only did it one, two, three, four, five, six times in his, in his entire career, got to the 70 game mark. And obviously, there's two seasons mixed in there where, uh, you know, You know, they just didn't play 70 games, so, like, I can't hold the fact that he only played 55 and 56 a couple years ago against him or whatever. But, you know, I think that is, like, whether he has the fragile label or not is kind of beside the point when it comes to the guy only played six seasons out of 17, where he got to 70 games, you know? Yep. But, yeah, I think for me, he's a lock to make it.

but I wouldn't personally be like I just like if I'm on the committee and again if I were there'd be a lot of fucking changes around here. But if I were on the committee, I'd just kind of be like, I guess I don't care either way. Do what you guys want. You know? Yep. And as I've mentioned before when this stuff comes up, guys who have played, guys who are borderline cases who play their entire career with the one team seem to get a boost. helps. Versus the Pierre-Turjean types who bounce around a lot.

So I think... Wait till they trade them this offseason. Yeah. See how he's feeling about it. Well, he'll go to Detroit for one year as everyone does, but... That's exactly right. He'll be all right. But, so, so Latang hits a thousand games.

Stephen Stamcoe is about to do that. He's at 9.98 right now. And, uh, again... That's a guy who is going into Hall of Fame. Guaranteed. Not even a question. One, two Rocket Richards, but very early in his career and then kind of,

I don't want to say limped, limped isn't the right word, but like, it seemed like he was on track to be Jerome Gindler, right? Like, it seemed like he was going to be a guy who scored 600 goals pretty much with his eyes closed. Yeah. And now he's, He's 33.

He could still get there. Yeah. He's at 514. And look, he's scored 75 goals the last two seasons. So, like, he's having a late career renaissance in a way. Yeah. But like Le Teng. He just had three more of these seasons, gets him over 600.

Yeah. Sure. But my point is, like Letang, he's a guy, he's been in the league 15 years. And if I had said to you, you know, of course, Stephen, Stamcoast is at 1,130 career games played, you'd be like, obviously. Look how long he's been around, you know? And another guy who, you know, with the injuries, a lot of them are, I mean, you break your leg.

Nobody's questioning your toughness for not going back out there. And he had the, he had the blood clot. Remember that? Yeah. So, yeah, he's a slam dunk. I've mentioned this before, but if you went back in time to 2012 and you went to a hockey fan, you know, they're like, hey, what's going on 10 years from now? You'd be like, you don't want to know.

But hockey-wise, you'd be like, hey, you know what's really cool? You don't want to know. Yeah, hockey-wise, you also don't know know. But you know what's really cool in the NHL in the year of our Lord, 2023. Gretzky's unbreakable goal record looks like it could actually be breaking. Like somebody could actually break it. That fan would have been like, oh, you're talking about Stamco's. Yeah.

They wouldn't have said Ovechkin, because that was also when Ovechkin had, was like, had dipped down to like 30 goals. And people were like, oh, you know, you can't win with him, coach killer, all that. So they would have been like, yeah, it's this guy who just scored 60 goals as a 21-year-old, already has a 50-goal season, two, Rocket Richards. And it didn't, you know, he has had two 40, no, 3-40 goals season since then, but never even got to 50 again. But, yeah, hell of a player. Yeah, he's so good. A third of his goals came in his first four seasons. Wow.

Yeah. More than a third. Almost 35% of his goal. Easy player to like, tough player to hate, but check back with me in two weeks. I'll figure it up. He better not. Don't do anything to our precious boy, Michael Buttonon, Stephen Stamco's. Yeah, that's right.

Because you will get called. Yep. But yeah, for me, you know, a way more open and shot Hall of Fame case. He's in. Yeah. He's first ballot, all, you know, all that stuff. Yeah. It's funny because, like, obviously counting stats are such like a weird way to just be like, well, guaranteed, he's, he's got it.

But, like, I really feel like if you get to 500 goals, I don't, that's so many goals that I can't be mad about it. You know what I mean? I don't care how you do it. You want to be Dave Andrewchuk and score a shitload of goals for, you know, 40 years by just standing in front of the net? and having them go in like off your leg or whatever, go with God. You found a way to score 500 goals in the NHL. I'm happy for you, you know.

He's, yeah, stamp codes. And the other thing with him, and part of this is the fact that he was a first overall pick, but this is so subjective and everything. But like, you know, with Chris LaTang, I would say, you know what? Chris Lentang was a good defenseman for a long time, really good.

I don't know that ever when I was watching Pittsburgh, I was like, oh, there's a hall of face. And he's like the engine here too. Like Stamcoast, there were there were definitely years where it's like, Stamcoast is the fucking guy on this team. That's the thing. Stamcoast you were always like, that guy right there is a superstar. Like that guy is, uh, you know, it's, it's again that, I know, you can roll your eyes at it, but it's that test of like, you know, you take your kid to the game. Are you like pointing out Chris LaTang and being like, watch that guy? You know, probably not. Even if, even if Crosby's not playing that night or whatever.

Stamco's, you're like, you know, hey, dad, who do I have to watch? Watch that guy. Watch 91 because he's, that guy's a killer. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, just seems like a cool guy. Yeah, that too. Although, again, two weeks from now.

Yeah, do not like reveal anything about this to me. You know what I mean? I don't want to know what this guy's Twitter likes. Oh, God. What's going to happen in the three or four hours between this recording? No shit. Hey, delete this. No. Oh, God.

But yeah. Okay, one last thing here. This is going to be some wrestling talk because WrestleMania was this weekend. If you folks don't want to hear wrestling talk, go to the athletic, go to EPRinkside. Yes. Go to the Puck Suit Patreon. Those are all the plugs you're going to get. Subscribe now, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, very easy to do. And in fact. Not miss any more hockey talk. The greatest deal that you'll ever get is on those two websites. three websites, I guess. But yeah, so WrestleMania talk. I know you didn't watch it,

understandably so. But I wonder what kind of thoughts you have about the merger between a legitimate fighting organization. Guys are really punching each other in the face as hard as they can. The NHL? And then also, well, I'm at college hockey.

But no, UFC and WWE coming together merging. Not one acquiring the other, they are merging. Although I guess UFC obviously has a higher valuation. So they will be... It's like UFC's parent company kind of buying the WWE and then they're going to be side by side. They're going to get spun off into their own company with the stock ticker TKO, which is a funny one. and also maybe a little bit of a shot at Tony Khan and the

oh hadn't thought of that okay what's interesting is Tony Khan boys with Dana White what imagines we won't be seeing oh I didn't know that yeah they they don't seem like the sort of people that would hang out

you mean rich guys good point good point yeah you got it rich guys love doing that but there are there are all kinds of like oh here's Tony Khan front row at UFC that kind of stuff Um, and like UFC fighters, Jorge Mosvedal, for example, have been on, uh, have been on AEW plenty over the years.

So, you know, um, Paige Van Zant, I guess is another one. But, uh, yeah, so like, what, what's your, what's your take? What do you, what do you think? I mean, I'm not, we've known for a while that they were going to be sold. There was talk at one point. It was going to be the Saudis that would get them. And I guess this is better than. that, but my understanding is...

30% worse or better than the Saudis. My understanding is UFC and its Endeavor is the name of the company that owns them, is like a garbage company that treats people horribly. So, uh, yeah, they, I seamless transition, uh, to the WWE, a good synergy there because... Yeah, famous, well, so since Endeavor bought UFC, I think it was seven or eight years ago now, I'm not a big MMA guy, so I might be getting some of the details wrong. Um, but basically my understanding is they're like, oh, our, our valuation has, has tripled, you know, since, since, uh, we bought the company or whatever, maybe even more than that. I don't remember now. Um, but, uh, fighter pay has also, and they go, and they go, well, fire pay has increased like 600% since X year. And it's like, right, but the, the value of the company's increased.

15 times over or whatever since the year that you're citing. It's crazy that, you know, as hockey fans, we always hear about the 50-50 split. Yeah. And it's, I think I read somewhere UFC,

it's like 80 or 90% of the money goes to the owners. Yeah. Versus the talent. And it's probably similar in the WWE. It's like just a ridiculous, they need a union is what they need. Association.

Yeah. But we'll never. get one. The part that interests me is, like I've often said, I'm not a fan of watching wrestling in the ring, but I am a fan of the behind the scenes. And so, WrestleMania, which is their big event, it's split into two nights. Night one happens, and every wrestling fan that I follow or read or anything like that is just beside themselves with how great it is. this is so good oh we love wrestle we love the

wwee um triple h who's the guy used to be a wrestler now he's the guy who had taken over from vince as the the head of the storylines and basically the guy running the show what a great guy what a genius and then night two comes along and people don't like it and then you get to the monday night raw after russamania

which is supposed to be the biggest one of the year and it's just garbage. Everybody completely hates it, and we find out that in the interim, like Vince McMahon basically comes back and takes over. So, so night one of WrestleMania, I guess I should say,

as a whole, this WrestleMania is considered the greatest of all time in terms of like the in-ring action and like the presentation and all that kind of stuff. But what people specifically objected to on Night 2 was that they, they let Roman Raines win

the way Roman Raines always wins over Cody Rhodes a guy they'd been building for like two or three months to challenge him and again this is just WWE going we actually hate our fucking fans and we think they're all stupid as shit so fuck you give us more money and you know for for a year

or more than a year that's worked like people have been like we love that Roman Raines beats everybody all the time. It's cool. And anytime you're like, well, yeah, but like, you might like it, but like, and it might be like commercially successful, but like, it's kind of creatively bankrupt, right? Like, you just have the guy, uh, do the same four moves. And then, uh, some, some of the guys who were related to him run in and like attack the other guy when the ref gets knocked down. And it's like, yeah,

right. No, that's exactly, that's exactly how every match goes. Correct. And that's how this one went. And to some extent, people felt like this was the last straw, although I personally will say, I was team Roman should win on this one. Really? Okay. I'm just not a Cody Rhodes fan. Yeah. I think he's, what's the word I'm looking for for how I would describe Cody Rhodes? A guy who I think is a talented wrestler.

Overly sincere in a way that like is off-putting to me in the kind of way I like wrestling. But it is interesting in that he was. sort of pushed as the you know the wrestling term for the good guy is the baby face because for decades that's what it was the Hulk Hogan coming out say your prayers

The good guy wins at WrestleMania. Yeah and but it was and it was always like the the good guy was really a good guy like it was like you know these you know the the the the and that kind of changed with the Austin era where it was like oh but what if the good guy was actually like kind of badass. Vince McMahon Shades of Gray's speech. Yeah. And so now like here's this guy where and like Roman

Raines has been great as a bad guy for years now. Like a cut and dried bad guy. I want to be cool and maybe you'll cheer me a little bit but like a, you know, like a full on bad guy. And here this guy comes in as like the white meat baby face like you know, who's going to save the day? And like you say they're just like no, screw you. Yeah. And like. It's it's been. like if endgame ended with Thanos just

snapping again and getting everyone again and being like, well, I guess you guys have to watch another movie to see them see him. Yeah, and that movie, Thanos easily wins. And then the movie after that, Thanos wins. And then the movie for three fucking years. But

this is why I think ultimately Cody Rhodes lost, is Cody Rhodes went and started a company that opposed WWE. Yes. and you think fucking Vince was going to let that fly? We'll let your main event WrestleMania and talk about how much it means to you

that your dad who never won the WWF title that you could carry on his legacy and we'll let you build a whole storyline around that. But just like Dusty, you're not winning shit, brother. We're going to make you look like a huge loser at the end of it. And there is, again, this is where this is where I get interested. I don't care who the champion is, except that the behind the scene stuff is interesting to me. And there is speculation that the way this was built up

was, some would say, very clearly pointing to Cody Rhodes has to win and have the big moment and all of that. And you know, you're going to have drop confetti and do fireworks and everyone goes home happy. And that then Vince comes back because of the sale and goes, no, screw this guy, the big, huge guy with muscles is going to win. Because that's always has to win. Cody was looking shredded at WrestleMania. So I don't think that in particular was a problem. But he's not a, like, isn't Vince's whole thing that like, you know, it's got to be a guy that like walk through the airport and people are like, holy crap, look at that guy.

Yeah, for sure. That's not Cody. No. And yeah, obviously, Roman has a more distinct and like classic wrestling. wrestling look than Cody does, for sure. And then, and then so Monday night comes and apparently, so. Yeah, okay. So you tell them.

We're getting that. So Saturday night, right, night one WrestleMania. Everyone was like, unfucking believable. Holy shit. It didn't work for me as much as it did for everybody else, but whatever. I'm a hater. That's fine. Um, night.

So, but then, so night one happens at Saturday night. Sunday morning, or not even Sunday morning. Like Sunday, like, mid afternoon. the report start coming out. Endeavor is buying WWE or merging with it or whatever. And once that happened, and like basically the report is not only are they going to keep Vince, they're going to make him like one of the executives of this new company. Because like Vince got forced out for all the sexual misconduct.

Yeah, because he's a horrible person. Horrible guy. He's an absolutely one of the worst. worst living human beings. Yeah, he sucks. The only redeeming quality for a guy like him versus like a, you know, any of the other awful people we could mention is that he at least devoted his

life to something that did not matter. Sure. That's the only good thing you can say about it. Like this guy has been credibly accused of assaults. He has been credibly accused of racism and, you know, just like a horrifically hostile work environment. a garbage human being. Not as a character, not as a

bad guy character. Like an actual bad, right. I'm not saying he's a bad guy in the storyline. I'm saying he's a bad guy. Yes. There are two different things. But so I kind of tend to think this was the plan

all along, was that Cody was always going to lose to Roman. But I You know, how you get there maybe is a little different if Vince isn't making calls and that kind of stuff. But as you say, on Monday, it becomes readily apparent to people as like in the lead up to raw, again, the biggest show of the year for on TV anyway. This is in complete disarray. It looks exactly like what it looked like when Vince was running it seven, eight months ago.

there was a guy who was sitting behind like the production block or whatever like I don't know the technical terms but like where they do a lot of the in arena controls for the broadcast and someone was like yeah they brought out like three different run sheets to this guy an hour before bell time

yeah they have apparently in the middle of the show they were like Seth Rawlins is going to come out and have a match this is so fascinating to be This is the stuff that... So they go, okay, here comes Seth Rollins. He's going to have a match. And then, like, they come out.

The audience sings his fucking song to him. They cut to commercial. They come back. Seth Rollins is leaving the ring. Nothing happened. Didn't cut a promo, didn't say a word. And apparently he was, like, obviously pissed off about it. There is literally a clip of...

And keep... This is a live television show. Yes, it's scripted, fake, whatever. But this is a live television show. He goes out to the ring. they go to commercial on the TV show. So they've got two minutes to kill. As he's in the ring,

producers come up to him. And go, yeah, you're going to get out of here. And inform him that the script has changed. Online. And he's mad. He's arguing with them as they're counting down,

like 30 seconds to we're back on the air. Apparently he has a microphone because he's supposed to say something. And he, like, throws the microphone at the guys. And then we're back on. And he's like, it's, It's absolutely ridiculous.

They are writing the show as the show is live on the air. Yep. Complete dysfunction, complete, a complete mess. And it all ends with the biggest, strongest guy that Vince loves killing everybody. Now, did you see the clip of Brian Alvarez, who is Dave Meltzer, Dave Meltzer, like the Bob McKenzie of wrestling journalism? Did you see the clip of Alvarez talking about this on one of the other? of the Wrestling Observer podcasts.

So they go, okay, Cody is going to have a match in the main event. He has a mystery partner. He's facing Roman Reigns and his buddy Solo Sacoa. And they're like,

oh, who's the mystery partner? Who's the mystery partner? And they're, you know, the suggestion has been that it's some guy they're bringing in from New Japan.

This guy Switchplay Jay White. And wouldn't that be cool? But it's like, which is usually what they do on the first ride. after. There's all kinds of... New characters show up.

Yeah. But of course, like, nobody in fucking WWE universe knows who the fuck Switchblade J. White is like the third most important guy in New Japan for the last several years, you know,

who I think is phenomenal, but like just nobody knows who he is if you're just a WWE fan and not like an actual wrestling fan. So I'm like, well, it's not going to be King Switch. And then it turns out to be Brock Lesnar. And you're like, oh. So they're going to do like a,

a Brock Lesnar feud with Solo Sacoa or somebody like that, you know? And no, he attacks Cody Rhodes before the bell and just beats the absolute shit out of him, throws them all around, like all over the ringside area for like 10 fucking minutes on the show ends.

And that is what Vince McMahon thinks of the Cody Rhodes push. Yeah. No, it's just Brock Lesnar. And Brock Lesnar is going to probably be the guy to be Roman now at like SummerSlam or something like that.

A match that they've already done like five times. Yep. And every time, boy, you're never going to believe how Romans defeated Brock Lesnar. A lot of interference from the Uso's and Solo Sokoa. Can you fucking believe it? The big story here, the big takeaway that I want for, if for some reason anyone who doesn't care about wrestling is still listening to this, the big takeaway is you have to go and Google what Vince McMahon looks like now.

Yeah. Because he leaves the company, because of all of these sexual scandals and all of these horrible things he's done, we think have finally caught up with them. Of course, they don't. We've learned anything in the last few years. It's that horrible people never get any sort of consequences. But he comes back with a mustache, which isn't, okay, fine. Keep in mind, this dude is 77.

He's a 77 year old who's been hit in the head for decades. He's never had facial hair before and now he has a pinched mustache. Like he looks like he looks like he's the guy from the artist. His hair is dyed pitch black. Not like, you know. I think it's more of a chestnut brown. Not like darkened up. And his eyebrow, his eyebrows he died.

And he looks like, I don't know what we're, like, what we're split. And I'm not, I generally like, hey, making fun of someone's appearance should be off limits. but when it's what somebody has chosen as their appearance, he looks ridiculous. He looks like Vincent Price screwed a Muppet and he's on television. You know, because he's on like CNBC

and all this because of this big business deal. He looks absolutely ridiculous. And it's like, dude, you, like, if you're like your dad or your grandpa or somebody started looking like this, you might pull them aside and be like, come on, man, this doesn't, like, you can't go, this doesn't work.

But this dude has been on TV for decades. We know what you look like. Yeah. We know this isn't, we know you don't have jet black hair. Like, he looks like Victor Newman from like 1983. He looks like. Except if his face was 100 years old. Someone, someone made the comparison, and I think this is dead on accurate.

What his haircut, his mustache, everything looks like is Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. Yeah. Yeah. And you can easily think about himself. saying, I don't give a damn. Yeah. Oh, he, yeah. The, I saw somebody describe him as like one of the Team America World Police puppets got left in the oven too long.

And that is, I think, if you take nothing else away from this discussion, go Google Vince McMahon mustache. Well, here's the thing. Just type in Vince McMahon. And Vince McMahon mustache is the first suggested result. It's horrific. I mean, like, I've seen people, I've seen celebrities where, you know, I watched a movie recently where I spent half the movie trying to figure out if one of the lead actors was actually who I thought it was. Because, you know, what movie is this? People have, I was, I see you, starring Helen Hunt.

And it is Helen Hunt, turns out. Yeah. But I haven't seen that one. You know what? It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Some people, you know, they have work done. Sometimes it goes well.

Like, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, like, taking an entire bottle of just for men hair dye and applying it to each eyebrow. And then being like, I look good. Time to go on CNBC and talk about a billion dollar business. Yep. Like, if you were watching a movie and the bad guy came out looking like that, you'd be like, all right. Bit on the nose, huh?

Bit on the nose and also, did they not have a makeup crew? Like, this looks ridiculous. Yeah. He looks like you're waiting for him to pull off the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible mask and show that it's somebody else. Those masks look way better. So, again, looks good on him because he's an absolute garbage pile of a human being and I hope his stupid company goes out of business.

Bad news on that one. I don't think it's going to happen. What I do think will happen is that a bunch of wrestlers, well, A, a bunch of wrestlers are going to get released because that's what happens every time there's a big merger or acquisition or whatever and WWE, especially under Vince McMahon, loves getting rid of fucking wrestlers.

Yeah, they love making billion dollar profits and cutting people so they can make a billion point zero. And when Triple H took over, he signed a bunch of people that Vince McMahon specifically was like get those fucking guys out of here. Guess what's going to happen to those guys?

other talent are apparently telling wrestling reporters if this is as bad as I think it's going to be I will not be renewing my contract and it's like well there's only so many spots in AEW you know yeah and lots of behind the scenes people are going to lose jobs oh 100% yeah it's it's awful but just speaking of awful people

can we just one last 30 second rundown and then we'll go that we do have to mention not important in the grand scheme of things but one of the big things with WrestleMania is like it's an honor just to be on the car it's like a big thing to get to appear

if you're you know it's a sign of confidence for the audience so it's like the coveted spots at one point in the second night they set up the classic WrestleMania spot of somebody's in the ring and it's like oh yeah we got a surprise for you you're going to have a match right now against

and everybody waits for the surprise and you know is it going to be someone on the roster is going to be somebody new, and who comes dancing out Vince McMahon's son? Here comes the money. Who has been a character in wrestling off and on for years.

He is famous for like getting, yeah, decades, getting throwing off of things, doing these outrageous stunts, then getting six months off to recover that nobody else would ever get and, you know, all that sort of stuff. He dances his way to the ring, picks up a microphone, is already winded.

Can barely get out what he's trying to say. and proceeds to then do exactly one wrestling move and blow his leg out on live television. Torn quad, I believe they said. At which point, at which point Snoop Dog has to jump in the ring and improvise a finish because, again, live TV. But that's who, out of everybody, that's who got the spot.

Let's bring back the 50-year-old, winded executive, who is also the son of the new boss, same as the old boss I hope the whole company just falls into a sinkhole and it's terrible It's not great Can't wait to watch the next pay-per-view

When are they in Saudi Arabia Next? That's probably You know that's a great question It's gonna shock you to learn I'm not really keeping up with that Part of WWE's business But yeah I want you hit them with the plugs for real this time

Find my stuff on the athletic, I hear me with Ian Mendez on the athletic hockey show. I have also got a, in addition to my very weird lottery idea that's coming on Friday, I think tomorrow, Thursday, I've got another edition of Rules Court with Ian Mendez as well as Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Sean Gentilly, where we vote on your rule changes. And without giving anything away,

I think the three of us agreed that we thought this was the best batch of submissions that we've had. Wow, look at that. It's pretty cool. And then for me, like I said, I'm getting on a plane in a few hours to go to Tampa for the Frozen 4, and I did a whole shitload of writing about the Frozen 4

and the Hobie Baker and the Mike Richter Award this week. You will not, I promise you this. You will not find someone who went more sicko mode on the matchups, the stats, all that kind of stuff than I did this. year. You're just not going to find somebody like that. So, so that's all on epirinkside.com.

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articles only tier of EP ringside, that's, that's cheaper than the, uh, the, the previously existing one. Uh, I love EP only works for the more expensive one.

Because that's all of elite prospects, not just EP ringside. So there's that to think about But if you use the code I Love EP You get all the articles You get all the stats on elite prospects And you get three months tacked on To the end of your subscription for free

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Well, we're doing a bunch of other bonus stuff. Not this week, because again, I will be in Tampa. But next week we're going to do a bunch of bonus stuff, including we don't have a date and time yet. But at some point, we will announce when we're doing another live call-in show that we do with the listeners over on the Puck Soup Discord. So now's the time to get in on that as well, patreon.com slash Puck Soup. And yeah, that's it.

Thanks for listening, everybody. If you're going to watch The Frozen Four, enjoy it. If you're going to watch the rest of the NHL season instead, enjoy that. And don't enjoy any WWE products. Do not. Okay, have a good one, folks. Thanks very much. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows. seats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Bork, too.